Kate Hewitt - The Wedding Party Collection

He picked up his bag; he walked to the door.

And it clicked shut behind him.

* * *

As far as declarations of intent were concerned, that one could have gone better, decided Trig as he headed for the lifts. Lena had never handled romance well. In her teens she’d been too forward with boys, too fearless, too competitive, and she’d sent them running. Later on she’d got the hang of not scaring away potential suitors—she’d even taken a few of them to her bed, but for some reason known only to her none of them had ever measured up. Not in her eyes.

Not in Trig’s or Jared’s eyes either.

So she’d had standards that had suited them all.

Standards based around her father, the highly successful international banker. Around Damon, adrenaline junkie and hacker extraordinaire. Around Jared, who feared nothing and regularly achieved the impossible.

Standards that made her picky, and then, when she did break things off with the latest but not quite greatest, she’d start second-guessing herself and getting all despondent because the jerk she’d just let go had told her she wasn’t feminine enough or that she needed to soften up a bit before any man would take her seriously. Sour grapes, a parting shot, but Lena had never seen it that way.

She’d mope for a few days and then Jared would tell her he was going skydiving on Friday and that he’d saved her a chute.

She’d try and be softer with other people for a bit and then Trig would turn up with his lightest kite-boarding rig, and there’d be a thirty-knot cross-shore wind blowing and he’d eyeball the conditions and they’d barely be manageable and he’d ask if she wanted to go break something.

The answer to that being, ‘Hell, yes.’ Always yes.

Until she’d got shot and everything had changed for all of them.

These days no one challenged Lena to push harder or go faster, even though she still pushed herself.

These days he looked at her with concern in his eyes; he knew he did. And she looked at him and told him to go away.

Rough couple of years.

But things were getting better now. Lena was getting better now and together they could find a new way of doing things and of being with each other if only she’d try.

The lift doors opened. A uniformed boy gave him an appraising stare. ‘Mr Sinclair?’

Trig nodded.

‘Let me take your luggage.’ If the boy wondered why Mr Sinclair needed to change rooms, he was too discreet to ask. ‘Room 406 for you, Mr Sinclair. I have your entry cards here.’

Trig stepped into the lift.

He just had to convince her to try.

FOUR

Trig woke to the sound of morning prayer at a nearby mosque. His bed had been big enough but his dreams had been chaotic. Loss, always loss. Lena walking away from him because he’d asked too much of her. Lena disappearing into the gluggy grey mud of East Timor. Slipping away from him, one way or another, with Trig powerless to prevent any of it.

The prayer song was hypnotic.

Trig closed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair and sent up a prayer of his own that this day would be a good day and that Lena wouldn’t be freaking out about last night’s declaration of undying devotion—or whatever it was that he’d declared.

She wouldn’t run; she was smarter than that.

But she might feel uneasy with him and he wouldn’t put it past her to have argued herself around to thinking that she wasn’t good enough for him or that he’d be better off without her. For someone so magnificent, she had the lowest sense of self-worth he’d ever encountered.

She’d told him once that it came of being an ordinary person in an extraordinary family. She’d never seen herself as extraordinary too.

He reached for the hotel phone, tapped in the other room number and waited.

She wouldn’t have done a runner. If nothing else, she knew he’d track her through Amos Carter if he had to. She might reschedule but she wouldn’t blow that meeting off. Her need to find Jared was too strong.

‘What?’ she finally mumbled, once she’d picked up.

‘You want to have breakfast at this little café I saw on my walk last night?’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Five-seventeen.’

Lena groaned, a sleepy, sexy sound that had him shifting restlessly. ‘You want to have breakfast now?’

‘I’m starving.’

‘You’re always starving.’

‘Their breakfast special is lentil soup, a loaf of sourdough and a big chunk of cheese.’

‘Go get ’em, Tiger. Bring me back a cup of tea,’ she muttered and hung up.

Trig grinned and shoved the sheet aside, suddenly hungry to seize the day. She hadn’t said no and she hadn’t been wary. She hadn’t said, ‘Darling, come make me yours,’ yet either, but that was pure fantasy anyway.

He got breakfast.

He went walking and found the gate where Lena would meet up with Carter and set about exploring exit options and observation points. By the time the seven a.m. prayer session sounded, he was back at the hotel and knocking on Lena’s door, takeaway tea in one hand and a tub of yoghurt and honey in the other.

‘Breakfast,’ he said when she opened the door, and she let him through and closed the door behind him and yawned.

She looked like a waif. A little too slender, a halo of tangled black hair and those startling bluish-grey eyes, smudged with black lashes. A modelling agency had offered to contract her once after seeing her on the beach. Surfing sponsors had come after her too. She’d turned down both offers with startled surprise. Couldn’t see what they’d seen in her. Didn’t want what they’d offered anyway.

‘Is this the courting you?’ she wanted to know as he set the tea and yoghurt on the table.

‘This is the impatient me,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen this me before. I’m waiting to see if you want me to court you before I start that.’

‘My mistake.’ Lena smirked and carefully removed the lid on her tea. ‘What’s got you all pepped up?’

‘You mean besides wanting to know if you’ll go out with me?’

‘Yeah, besides that. Because I’m not awake enough yet to make a definitive decision on that. I couldn’t think clearly enough to make a decision on it last night either.’

‘Red wine does that.’

‘True.’ She sipped at her tea and let out an appreciative sigh. ‘So you’re happy this morning because...’

‘You have got to see this bazaar.’

‘You’re excited about shopping?’

‘It’s not shopping, it’s haggling. It’s a blood sport.’

‘Is anything even open yet?’

‘Couple of stalls are.’

‘What did you buy?’

‘Carpet. But I haven’t bought it yet. I’ve just had it set aside so I can think about it.’

‘Uh-huh. How much?’

‘That’s what we’re negotiating.’

‘Ballpark.’

‘It’s a really nice carpet. Silk.’

‘Uh-huh.’

Seven thousand dollars was a lot to pay for a two metre by one point six metre bit of mat that people walked on. ‘It’s an investment piece.’

‘Is it magic?’

‘I didn’t ask. Maybe you should come with me when I go back.’

‘When are you going back?’

‘After I’ve shopped around.’

‘Who are you and what have you done with Trig?’

‘Could be I’m nesting,’ he said. Way to harp on a tricky subject. ‘You all the way awake yet?’

‘No.’

‘Because if you are, now would be a good time to tell me if you’re going to go out with me.’

‘Still weighing the pros and cons.’

There was just no rushing her these days. ‘I brought you breakfast. That would be a pro.’

‘You also woke me up at five a.m.’

‘You’re welcome.’